The present invention relates generally to position and/or orientation measurements. In particular, the present invention relates to a tracking method for tracking a sensor in a capture range in a field generated by a field generator, a tracking system for tracking a sensor in a capture range in a field generated by a field generator and to a computer program product comprising computer program code means.
Known systems for performing position measurements use a localization system with a given fixed capture range and accuracy and resolution. Having a fixed size and desirably large capture range often comes at the cost of decreased accuracy in resolution. This bears two problems: either the capture range or the accuracy and resolution do not match the needs of a user.
P. G. Seiler et al: “A novel tracking technique for the continuous precise measurement of tumour positions in conformal radiotherapy” Phys. Med. Biol. 45 (2000) N103-N110 describes a tracking technique using magnetic fields as information carriers between a field generator and a field sensor, similar to other magnetic tracking applications such as Wynn et al “Advanced superconducting gradiometer/magnetometer arrays and a novel signal processing technique” IEEE Trans. Magn. 11 701-7. However, the capture range defined by the field generated with the field generator remains the same for all applications and measurements.